


the universe took its time on you

by gnx (LiesArePartiallyTrue)



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Circles - Freeform, M/M, Mathematics, Pi Day, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiesArePartiallyTrue/pseuds/gnx
Summary: On why Pythagoras never discovers Pi.





	the universe took its time on you

**Author's Note:**

> so i was reading some articles abt greek maths in honour of pi day and ended up writing this 
> 
> there's some actual history in this, as well as maths, bc maths is great, but some things might be all outta whack and tbh it's probably bc i'm giving pythagoras more credit than i should be

It happens on an evening Pythagoras has spent pouring over parchment scrolls on their dining table, with Hercules knocking about in the other room and Jason due back from the market any minute now.

 

It's been a quiet couple of days for them - things in the palace have been peaceful and they've got some coin left from their last odd job, this time mucking somebody's stables, so they're free to stock up a bit on provisions before Hercules inevitably gambles away every drachma.

 

Pythagoras' candle is burning out and his eyes are beginning to strain, but overall he's only feeling the queer sense of exaltation that mathematics brings out in him, making him high-strung and energetic in his work.

 

Tonight his straight-edges lay forgotten off to the side, because he's not mapping out triangles, or any angles at all. Though he loves triangles, is partial to them as geometric shapes on the whole - so simple and clean, yet complex and diverse are they - there is something to be said about perfection; and what more perfect that a circle's endless flow, or the concrete slopes of a square?

 

It's the former plaguing Pythagoras' mind now (though he's already thinking of how he might make it into the latter anyway, bend one perfect shape into the other; an idea for another day). At the moment, he's chasing after the abstract - he's certain there must be a correlation between a circle's circumference and its diameter, one that might be put to paper in a theoretical number.

 

Save for Daedalus, no Athlantean scholar thus far has been receptive to Pythagoras' idea of bringing geometry and numbers into a relationship, but it helps keep things in Pythagoras' head neater.

 

So Pythagoras searches for a number, essentially vast enough to encompass the eerie beauty of mathematics, the sheer perfection beyond comprehension, sometimes. Even when he's discovered five digits of his number, he knows it might take him days more, years, before he uncovers the sixth, centuries might pass before somebody determines a seventh.

 

Just as Pythagoras has grabbed his styles to quickly jot down his fleeting discovery before it escapes him, next to an impeccable drawing of a circle on the paper, Jason bursts in, unabashed in his joy as always. He jostles the door as he comes in, arms full of enough bread, cheese and legumes to feed an army.

 

As preoccupied as Pythagoras is, as hot with a science man's fever, he still manages to forget everything, when Jason is in the room. He's been the center of Pythagoras' universe since the day they'd met, and even now he draws Pythagoras' attention away from the parchments.

 

But circles and their perfection are still on Pythagoras' mind as his eyes drag over Jason's form in the doorway; for all Pythagoras loves the harsh edges of a triangle, he loves more the circular shape of the column of Jason's throat, the curve of his breast through his shirt, his bicep. These aren't at all like a woman's sinusoid lines, something of a comfort to Pythagoras, nor do they belie his strengths - there is power in Jason's body, edges still, the cut of his jaw, the crook of his elbow.

 

He has a circle's perfection to him, unprecedented in nature, unfathomably beautiful, like a science. By the gods, but Pythagoras loves him.

 

Jason smiles at him, showing off dimpled cheeks, greets him. He then starts putting away his purchases in bowls by Pythagoras on the table.

 

"Hello," Pythagoras says back, and the circles on his paper remain forgotten, the number floats away to the edges of his mind as it focuses now on better things, as he falls into Jason's gravity and leaves his discovery for the centuries to come.

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> \- quadrature of a circle is indeed one of the Classical Problems  
> \- pythagoras was rly the first to correlate numbers with geometric elements  
> \- i don't claim to have evidence that pythagoras irl had anything to do with the number pi, but aristotle was heavily influenced by plato, influenced by pythagoras, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> \- aristotle did indeed determine pi as 7 digits roughly two centuries after pythagoras was alive ;)
> 
> i've used a lot of maths terminology loosely to be more descriptive, but feel free to tell me if things are blatantly wrong 
> 
> find me on tumble @gee-nx


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